


The Lucky Charm Challenge

by myheadinthecoudsnotcomingdown



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Lucky Charm, These Two Being Dorks, marinette is too creative, video games - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-13 05:40:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19244944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myheadinthecoudsnotcomingdown/pseuds/myheadinthecoudsnotcomingdown
Summary: Marinette plays a video game based on Ladybug's Lucky Charm power.





	The Lucky Charm Challenge

Marinette got her tray and sat down for lunch with Alya and Nino only to realize that both were buried in their phones. Adrien joined them a second later.

“Wow,” he said sarcastically, “Technology really is ruining the teenage social scene.”

Marinette giggled as Alya looked up at them and rolled her eyes. “Hello to you too…” She was interrupted by a loud buzzer sound from her phone and groaned, “And now you made me lose. Seriously? I hope you’re happy.” Alya sent the blond a playful glare, which he returned with a grin.

“So, what are you guys playing?” Marinette asked instead of telling Adrien that his smile was as beautiful as sunshine.

“Oh! It’s this super awesome new Ladybug game. One of my followers on the Ladyblog asked me if I’d played it yet, but I hadn’t even heard of it.” She tilted her screen so the other two could see it. “They give you a random object and you have to use it to solve the puzzle, just like Ladybug’s Lucky Charm!”

Nino had finished his level and put down his phone to join the conversation. “Yeah dudes, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ladybug does something like this to practice between akuma attacks. It’s super difficult though, I’ve been playing since yesterday and I barely made it to level two. I keep dying.”

Marinette smiled to herself. A game based on her abilities? Easy. And it would be nice to finally live down the teasing from her abysmal failure at that rap battle game Alya liked. Maybe she’d even get to dish out some teasing of her own if she destroyed Alya’s high score. Marinette was starting to like this game more and more. She reached out for Alya’s phone.

“Can I try?”

“Sure girl, I’m still pretty early in the game so it shouldn’t be too hard to beat.”

Marinette was sure it was going to be a piece of cake. She clicked the start button on Alya’s screen and was given a tennis racket that she was supposed to use to…get out of a jail cell, it looked like. Should be easy. If she used the tennis racket to launch that rock, that would take out the light, and she could use a piece of glass to loosen the hinges on the door.

“Why can’t I pick up the rock?” She asked. Alya leaned over.

“Hmm… I didn’t even notice that. It might just be part of the floor. Or a smudge on the screen, I don’t know, maybe I need to clean my phone.”

Ok, so she couldn’t pick up the rock. Not the end of the world, she just needed a new strategy. Maybe if she took the netting out of the tennis racket, she could slide the strings in between the door and the frame and unlock it like they did with credit cards in the movies!

“Alya, how do you take the netting out of the tennis racket?”

Alya was looking at her like she’d grown an extra head. “Why would you want to do that? Do you normally go around taking the netting out of tennis rackets?”

Marinette recalled at least two separate occasions when an Akuma had required her to do just that, one time when that tennis racket wasn’t even her lucky charm, but decided there had to be a safer way to answer that question. “Well, I don’t usually have to use a tennis racket to get out of a locked prison cell!”

A buzzer sounded, indicating that time had run out. Marinette stared at the phone screen in shock. She had lost. Her! Ladybug! Ladybug had just lost a game based on her own abilities. Not only lost but lost spectacularly! Alya made a sympathetic noise and took her phone back from Marinette’s numb hands.

“Too bad, girl! Better luck next time. But I guess we can’t all be Ladybug.”

//

That night, Ladybug arrived for patrol to see a very excited Chat Noir. Good, hopefully he could distract her from her abysmal failure _at her own game._

“What’s got you so excited Kitty?”

His face lit up, “Oh my goodness, Milady! At lunch my friends introduced me to this game based on _your powers_. It’s so much fun and it turns out I’m pretty good at it! I’m already at level four! Have you played it yet?” Chat Noir asked innocently.

Ladybug felt her shoulders slump. Even Chat Noir was better at using her powers than she was. She sat heavily on the edge of the roof.

“Ladybug?” Chat looked concerned, “Milady, what’s wrong?”

“That stupid game!” She responded before she could help herself, “A friend showed it to me and I was so excited because I thought it was going to be easy but then I lost! Not only that, I lost badly! So I thought, maybe it’s just that the level my friend was on was ridiculously hard or something, so I downloaded the app so that I could play it from the beginning, and I still lost. I haven’t won a single round all day.”

Chat Noir had almost been about to laugh at the irony of the situation when he saw tears welling up in the superheroine’s eyes. He sat down beside his partner and started rubbing circles on her back.

“Oh LB, it’s just a stupid game.”

“It’s not though,” She hiccupped, “It’s my powers! If I can’t even figure out how to use the lucky charm in a stupid video game, what makes me think I’m worthy to use these powers to SAVE FREAKIN’ PARIS!!!” She wasn’t trying to yell, but her voice cut through Chat’s stunned silence anyway. “Maybe you should be Ladybug,” She muttered piteously, “Since you’re obviously better at it than I am.”

To his credit, Chat didn’t respond immediately. He hadn’t thought that seriously about the game, but he could see now why Ladybug was so upset. Even Marinette had seemed pretty bummed when she lost the game at lunch and she didn’t have the added weight of actually being Ladybug. But just because he saw where she was coming from didn’t mean that he thought she was right. Now the challenge was to convince _her_ of that.

“Well,” He started slowly, “First off, as much as I would love you see you in my suit, I don’t think you and Plagg would get along too well. He can be a bit of a jerk and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I let him hurt your feelings. Besides, it would be a shame if milady had to walk around smelling like camembert simply because my idiot of a kwami likes stinky cheese.”

She was smiling now. Good. On to the hard part.

“What about this game makes you think you aren’t a good Ladybug? You use real life lucky charms all the time and I sometimes don’t even know what’s going to happen until it already has. You even figured out how to use it in reverse when we faced Backwarder! I couldn’t have done that.”

Ladybug sighed, “I mean, that’s what Tikki said and I know I use lucky charms all the time and have no problem. It’s just that everything I tried in the game wasn’t allowed. How was I supposed to know you aren’t supposed to take the netting out of the tennis racket?!”

Chat laughed, “My friend tried the same thing, and she’s one of the most creative people I know. You know what I think your problem is?” Ladybug looked at him curiously and shook her head.

“Aren’t you supposed to be reassuring me and _not_ telling me I have problems?” She teased.

Chat smiled, “You’re just more creative than the programmers who designed the game. They’re just dorks in nerdy graphic tees who don’t think to take the netting out of the tennis racket.”

Ladybug smiled and punched him lightly in the shoulder, “You mean like you.”

Chat smiled back, “Exactly like me, except my father wouldn’t let me get caught dead in a nerdy graphic tee.”

“Thanks for making me feel better, Chat.” She stood and stretched, “I think I’ll delete that game and just stick to the real deal from here on out.”

“Glad to be of assistance, Milady.” He jumped to his feet and bowed.

But that didn’t stop him from laughing uncontrollably, or stop Ladybug from scowling, when Alya asked about the game in their next interview.


End file.
